i love this photo, #23

© kurt tong

I love this photo by the photographer Kurt Tong. It's such a delicate and mesmerizing picture - I found myself straining to see every 72 dpi pixel I could on screen. It's taken from his project, People's Park, in which he documents the current state of public parks in China, once an important cultural and societal space in a country that has changed greatly. He describes making the picture this way:

"It was a 6 week trip to photograph fading parks in China and this image was taken right at the end of my trip. I guess I was working harder to look beyond the more obvious stuff, with me running out of film and everything. I first noticed the rows of birdcages (there was about 20 of them) and thought it would make a nice image. As I was 'looking' the shot, I noted the painted mural on the wall, in particular the painted birds. It was such a nice juxtaposition, the real trees with the caged birds against the fake bamboo and free birds. The colors were quite muted too except for the crazy plastic cages. It worked out really well, it just fit in with the theme of the project perfectly. The mural reminded me of the propaganda posters of the communist past and the plastic cages of the new industrial China with its people still caged and controlled."